1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to computer-aided design (CAD) systems, and in particular, to a method, apparatus, and article of manufacture for integrating multiple subsystems for a conceptual engineering design within a CAD system.
2. Description of the Related Art
Mid-range and high-end CAD systems of today attempt to streamline a user's workflow by optimizing commands and data-structures for building a single, detailed, sometimes very large, 3D model. Users must focus on tying every piece of geometry to every other so that any edit to any portion of the model will cause the rest of the model to update. However, the highly iterative, rough, abstract and piece-wise nature of early stage design becomes difficult to undertake within an essentially monolithic design approach adopted by such CAD systems. Designers end up resorting to various disparate niche software tools, resorting to various data catalogs, to ‘hand’ references to previous designs, to mental references to the company's rules of thumb, etc., in order to accomplish their task.
Several inefficiencies arise from handling the early stage design task in this manner:                Increased cost of operation: Designers buy and maintain different software programs        No coherent data-model: Downstream operations cannot take full advantage of the work        Leaves room for error: Holds to reason since so much is left to a manual regimen        Different tools, different results: Computations vary across stages of the design cycle        Re-usability limitation: Not easy to use a previous conceptual design as a starting point        Project timeline stretch: Combination of inefficiencies lead to increased project time        
Accordingly, what is needed is a flexible approach (within a CAD system) to integrate multiple tools, subsystems, software programs, and objects in the early stage or conceptual engineering design stage.